The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)
The Haunting in Connecticut is a 2009 American psychological horror film produced by Gold Circle Films and directed by Peter Cornwell. The film is alleged to be about Carmen Snedeker and her family, though Ray Garton, author of In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting (1992), has publicly distanced himself from the accuracy of the events he depicted in the book. The film's story follows the fictional Campbells as they move into a house (a former mortuary) to mitigate the strains of travel on their cancer-stricken son, Matthew. The family soon becomes haunted by violent and traumatic events from supernatural forces occupying the house. In 1987, Sara Campbell (Virginia Madsen) is driving her son Matthew (Kyle Gallner) home from the hospital where he has been undergoing cancer treatments and traumas. Sara and her husband Peter (Martin Donovan), a recovering alcoholic, discuss finding a rental house closer to the hospital. On another hospital visit, Sara finds a man putting up a “For Rent” sign in front of a large house. The man is frustrated and offers her the first month free if she will rent it immediately. On the trip home, Matt is in extreme pain, so Sara drives back to the house, where they stay for the night. The following day, Peter arrives with Matt's brother Billy (Ty Wood) and cousins Wendy (Amanda Crew) and Mary (Sophi Knight), and they choose rooms. Matt chooses the basement, where there is a mysterious door. After moving into the house, Matt suffers a series of visions involving an old, bearded man and corpses with symbols carved into their skin. The next day, Peter learns that the house was supposedly a funeral home after finding Matt and Billy in the room behind the mysterious door, which they discover is a mortuary. Peter then confronts Sara but eventually chooses to just ignore the house's dark past. At the hospital, Matt confesses to another patient, Reverend Nicholas Popescu (Elias Koteas), that he’s been seeing things. Nicholas tells Matt to call him if he needs to talk. After another vision, Matt calls Nicholas and tells him about the visions. Nicholas advises him to find out what the spirit wants. Later, Matt finds a burned figure in his room as he asks the spirit what it wants from him and theghost begins to move towards him. When the rest of the family comes home, they find a shirtless Matt with his fingers blood-covered from scratching at the wall. Even though he is tortured by the ghost. The family begins to crack under the stress of Matt's illness and bizarre behavior. Meanwhile, the children find a metal box of photographs, which show Jonah, a young man from Matt's visions, at a séance, emitting ectoplasm. Wendy and Matt research the house's history. They find out that the funeral home was run by a man named Ramsey Aickman. Aickman also conducted psychic research and would host séances with Jonah as the medium. At one séance, all those attending, including Aickman, were found dead and Jonah disappeared. Matt and Wendy then contact Nicholas to seek his help. Nicholas theorizes that Aickman was practicing necromancy in an attempt to control the dead and bind them to the house. He asks Matt and Wendy to take his hands and pray with him for the souls of the missing bodies and for Jonah. When Matt takes their hands, he is drawn into a vision of that final séance. That night, both Wendy and Sara suffer visions of spirits. Peter arrives in a drunken state, and begins shouting at everyone for having the lights on, causing a frightening racket. Sara confronts him shortly after. When the family goes to sleep, all of the electronics in the house go haywire, terrifying them. In desperation, Sara contacts Nicholas. Nicholas finds human remains in the house and removes them. Matt later awakens to find Aickman’s symbols carved into his flesh. He is taken to the hospital, where he encounters Jonah. Meanwhile, Nicholas nearly crashes his car when Jonah appears in his backseat. He and Matt begin to have simultaneous visions, in which Jonah is shown years before. After emitting the ectoplasm, everyone in the séance is burnt to a degree, after a flash of bright light. The severely burnt and barely alive Aickman told Jonah to get out of the house, concerned that the demonic presence will get him next. Jonah then flees. Seemingly the only way out, Jonah uses a dumbwaiter to escape, calling for help. Entering an unknown chamber, Jonah realizes that he has entered the crematory. Quickly before he can escape, the spirit traps Jonah in the crematory, and cremates him alive. Matt and Nicholas then break from the vision, after which Jonah's spirit disappears. Peter and Sara meet at the hospital and learn that Matt's cancer treatments have had no effect. They then discover that Matt has escaped the hospital. Back at the house, Wendy takes a shower, while Nicholas leaves a message telling the family to get out of the house immediately – Jonah's spirit was actually protecting them from the spirits. Wendy is nearly suffocated by the shower curtain, but escapes, only to see Matt arrive with an axe. Matt breaks through the walls in the front room with the axe, revealing the dusty corpses Aickman hid in the walls. He forces Wendy and the children to get out of the house, barricading himself inside and tearing down the other walls, as marked corpses begin to tumble into the room. As he swings the axe, the view switches from Matt to Jonah, who seems to be occupying Matt's body. Matt lights the bodies and the room on fire. Sara, Peter and Nicholas arrive with the fire department, Sara and Peter frantically try to get in to save Matt. Sara gets into the house and takes Matt under a table to avoid the falling timbers. The spirits, finally freed, disappear as a firefighter breaks through and pulls Matt and Sara to safety. Outside, everyone watches tearfully as the emergency crew attempts to resuscitate a dying Matt. As Matt slips away, he has a vision of himself standing in the graveyard where he sees Jonah, no longer appearing burnt. He seems about to follow Jonah when he hears his mother’s voice. He returns to his body and Jonah's spirit leaves him, appearing next to Nicholas before finally vanishing and passing on. At the end of the film, we are told that Matt's cancer has disappeared, and the house was rebuilt and resold with no further reported incidents of haunting.